honesty

One of the practices in yoga and Buddhism is learning to stay. Stay with the sensation, stay with the discomfort, stay through the overwhelming desire to bolt. This can pertain to asana or emotion, on or off the mat.

Over my lifetime I perfected the art of bolting, either physically or just curling inside of myself, becoming unreachable, nurturing my self harm, agonizing in the luxuriating belief that I am inherently broken and unlovable.

There have been many studies lately on the idea that the root of all addiction stems from a lack of connection to other humans. Yes, there is a genetic component, of which I am well aware and embody. However, I very much agree with the concept that there is more going on.

When we don’t behave like the status quo, when the emotions feel bigger than our body yet we aren’t taught what that means or how to cope, we start our practice of “moving away from”. There is a prolific amount of “emotion shaming” in our culture. Stoicism is considered brave, graceful, courageous. The ideal objective. Yet what people are slow to realize is that by stuffing the natural human emotions of fear, sadness and anger we are literally polluting our interior which inevitably physically manifests later. Trust me.

I am someone who has always had emotions bigger than my body. I feel things in oceanic overdrive. I have been labeled, ridiculed, diagnosed and categorized. In my younger years I coped with just about every numbing technique out there, giving me an authentic pass into almost any 12 step recovery group. As I’ve matured and had life experiences I’ve come to understand that feelings won’t kill me, even when that feels plausible. Other people feel fucked up too even when they act superior (which stems from lack of connection, too), and people will judge when they don’t understand.

Teaching my children that there is nothing wrong with them for feeling emotions is a huge priority for me. My son is very much like me, bless his heart. He feels in technicolor, as I do. He was bullied in school and seeds were planted in him early on as they were planted in me. As he begins to navigate the world as a young adult I constantly remind him there is nothing wrong with him, yet having the sensitivity that we do requires we learn how to navigate the world in specific ways. I sure as shit wish someone could have been a guide for me when I was younger, if for no other reason than just not to feel so fucking alone with everything. Who knows how much of what I try to teach him will land. I know I am planting new seeds for him, and I hope that he chooses, as I must, to water this new growth.

I am a teacher. I am a guide. I have been intensely fucked up and addicted and I am now thriving.

Avidyā is a Sanskrit word whose literal meaning is ignorance, misconceptions, misunderstandings, incorrect knowledge, and it is the opposite of Vidya.

My physical vision is changing and I notice myself seeing things that aren’t really there. This got me thinking about the more esoteric concepts of incorrect knowledge and misconceptions.

My experience of myself and observing others is that Avidya is often running the show, orchestrating events and interactions, encouraging assumptions. Our egos eat this up like chips and dip. You can’t eat just one! The false knowledge then gains momentum and before we know it we are in a house of mirrors. Where is the truth? What do I believe? How do I know for certain??? Crazy making.

Truth is subjective to each individual’s perspective. The ant perched in front of an elephant sees the trunk and has difficulty seeing anything else. The other ant hanging out behind the elephant sees the rear legs and tail and has no awareness of the trunk. Both of these ants have their own perspective and truth, and it most likely would be very difficult to convince them of anything else without willingness on their part.

I was sure I saw a bear the other day on my walk in the woods. I heard snuffling, too (snuffling is the tell-tale sign of bears of course). I slowed my pace and held my breath, feeling my fight or flight (Flight. Duh). I slowly proceeded on the path, getting closer to the bear when greater awareness revealed that it was a decaying tree stump. Initially, my senses perfunctorily responded with my “truth” that I was confronting a bear. Closer inspection changed my “truth” to confronting a decaying tree stump. All that changed was my awareness.

Often in yoga there is a common parable when teaching students about Avidya. The story involves a serpent that greater awareness reveals as a coiled hose. Being open to see beyond our initial reactions requires willingness to see what’s on the other side of what we feel is truth. This feels risky as shit sometimes but my experience has shown me it’s well worth the effort.

Our world is bombarded with closed minds and fixed ideas and most of us have our own if we’re honest with ourselves.

How willing are you to see something different? How willing am I?

I wonder what would happen if we allowed a bit more space into what we think we know and feel as truth.

Otherwise known as The Expectation. One definition of expectation is “a thing looked forward to”,which to me ultimately comes down to control. We expect our partners, our children, our parents, our friends, our coworkers, social media, to behave a certain way in order for us to feel okay. If everyone plays their prescribed roles then we’re good to go. However, if someone goes off-script we become resentful. Rather than owning our expectations we very often blame and try to manipulate towards our desired outcome.

I’ve experienced several situations where people clearly had expectations of how I should behave. “This is what friends should do”, “this is how girlfriends act”, “you don’t make eye contact with me”. Anyone who knows me well knows that I don’t conform nor am I burdened with being a people-pleaser. This doesn’t mean I don’t care nor value connection. It means I won’t be forced into it by obligatory social mores.

Eye contact is a vulnerable expression. It’s an opening. An invitation. A gift, really.

We can’t control the behavior of others, though we try don’t we? Have you ever looked honestly at your means of interaction with people? It is honest or coercive? Allowing or manipulative? The degree and frequency to which we feel disappointed by others gives us a clue as to how much expectation we harbor.

Not having expectations doesn’t equate to not having any boundaries or common decency. This is where communication comes in.

Recovery taught me that expectations are premeditated resentments. This is one of the best, most useful and honest tools I have learned.

We’ve all had times in our lives where we’ve reacted rather than responded. Boomerang emotionalism rather than calm exchange. When our reaction to something is larger than the situation itself it’s largely due to unfinished history. Thus, I teach my students when things feel hysterical it’s historical.

I’ve been writing frequently about this because, to me, this deep inner work is revelatory, rich and ultimately freedom-giving.

When people close to us die it churns up the mangle of history. Feelings and memories fly around like askew missiles; unpredictable and volatile. There also is no prescribed time-line as to how long this will continue. It’s like that meme that says “I walk around like everything is fine, but deep down inside my shoe my sock is falling off”. We can present the facade over the gaping wound, which I dare to say is how most people walk around in the world. We are all a bunch of unfinished historicals reacting and ricocheting around each other.

It’s easy to blame, point fingers and wear the” V” of perpetual victim-hood. It’s painless to don the cloak of self-righteousness. The real work and sustained relief is as a result of correct view of self.

Recent experiences in my life, interactions with people, have helped me to further see myself more clearly. Of course I want them to see their part, but I have no control over that, nor any control over their opinion of me. I invariably wish we all could play a version of Doctor: “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” in terms of our wounds. Without fail, every single time someone lets down their guard with me and speaks from the heart the relationship matures. We find we aren’t so very different after all. The exhaustive posturing is the peacock of the ego, without which there is just the softness of who we really are.

I teach students who come to see me to dig deep, to inquire, to delve into the murk. Some students hunger for this while others fidget and don’t come back to my class. It takes courage to do this work.

We have a quadrinity of selves inside of us that make up our unified Self. When we feel off our game, out of sorts, it’s because we are not addressing something in one of our quadrants. Before we wake up to svadhyaya, self inquiry, most of us are habituated to hang out in one of our quadrants. For years I hung out in my physical quadrant and completely identified my sense of “Me” with my outermost layer, in yogic terms, the annamaya kosha. We see this running rampant in our culture today, but that is a writing topic for another day.

On any given day one of our quadrants will be slightly out of whack. It’s part and parcel of this human shindig. The work is to begin to understand self/Self and become aware, honestly, truthfully, practicing Satya (yesterday’s post). Think of an equalizer on a stereo system trying to harmonize, balance and sync up.

How are you feeling today? Not just the cursory “I’m fine” bullshit, which we all know the meaning of “fine” anyway, right? Fucked up-Insecure-Neurotic-Emotional. I mean, how ARE you? How’s the body feeling? Are you mindfucking and over-analyzing? Are you bleeding-out emotionally? Do you feel a sense of tether to anything bigger than you?

I’ll start, to help get us going. As I look within I for sure know I’ve been mindfucking and bleeding out. Moving and leaving everything I know is a huge adjustment. I’ve felt tremendously hurt by others in my life recently and confused by their actions. In addition to that, the time frame of August through October is the anniversary of my mother and brother’s deaths. In general, I have processed, but I certainly can feel the over-arching vulnerability.

My sense of tether? My spiritual connect? Let’s just say it’s been sporadic like a sputtering ignition. In relationship lingo “It’s me, not you, God”. I so very much want and need a soft place to land right now. I’m trying to find it.

Ghandi refers to his life quest and pursuits as experiments in Truth, and by Truth he meant God. Everything Ghandi did was in reverence and supplication to God. Now, lest anyone get the wrong idea here, I am by no means comparing nor relating myself to Ghandi. I am, however, partaking in my own experiments in truth. Even with a capital T.

I have been seeking something beyond words for years. I’ve tried to find it in churches, addictions, people, jobs, perfections, achievements. The closest I’ve come to a satisfying relief is yoga. It makes sense to me. It hits the spot. Ghandi’s love for God was as tender as new growth on an evergreen. That is how I can feel about yoga when I remove all the bullshit of The Business of Yoga (TBOY). Over the last five years I have deeply struggled with my passion for yoga and TBOY. They do not jive. We try and try to get jiggy with it though, don’t we?

The truths I am experimenting with, especially right now as I left my life up north, are the quintessential questions of Who Am I? Who am I if I don’t teach? Who am I if my kids flew the nest? Who am I if my ex thinks I’m a failure as a mother? Who am I if I once was hetero and then I was lesbian and now I’m in a transgendered relationship? Who am I without my facebook page of interaction, adoration and confirmation? Who am I if I write all these words and expose myself and you don’t like them????

You know, just light, easy questions like those.

Am I an idea to people? A holder of concepts and presence wrapped in tattoos? What the actual fuck am I doing in my life right now?

I study people, their mannerisms and dances in behavior. I feel incongruity viscerally (remember my post from yesterday?), and it eats my lunch. I observe the practice of Satya, truthfulness, in myself and others. When I speak MY truth, people don’t always like it. They apparently want the “stay inside the lines and don’t rock the boat” version of Satya. But I refuse to modify my truth for acceptance, though of course I want it. I guess what I’m saying is, I will not sacrifice my quest for Truth in order for others to love and approve of me, and with that, I identify with Ghandi’s pursuits.

Leave me alone but don’t leave me. Does this ring a bell with any of my fellow addicts in the house?

“This would be a good topic for you to write about Leslie”. I hear this fairly regularly, especially when it’s been months between words. Last time I heard it, it was from my Shaman mentor as I was processing the transition of my partner from female to male. Many words needed then, and probably still now.

This recent notice to write was given to me just yesterday from my new therapist Michael. Personally, I love therapy, which is a good thing I suppose, considering it’s been a touchstone in my life to help with all the various crazy and addictions since I was 11.

I am an HSP if ya’ll know what that is. It’s often misdiagnosed as many things and people have fun labeling those of us who have this trait. “Oh she’s such a drama queen” “She’s neurotic” “She’s so emotional” “She’s such a bitch”. Actually, there may be some truth in those things as there is truth in many things, but the biggest truth is that I am a Highly Sensitive Person. My emotions have always felt bigger than my body. My family sure as shit didn’t understand it. This is a bitter-sweet gift that manifests in many of us artistic types. Being this psychic, intuitive and sensitive helps me greatly in my work as a Shaman and yoga teacher, but it sucks ass because I still feel the rest of the world, too. I’m forever finding tricks to meter the sensate. Enter stage left: anorexia, bulimia, cutting, drinking, drugging, fucking strangers, stealing, burglary, getting married, having babies, running away, treatment centers, jail, therapy, recovery, writing. Quiet. LOTS of quiet required.

Michael said I have a narrow band-width to receive love. Wow. Spot on. I laughed and agreed and said that yes, it would probably be best if I could have an IV drip of love: measured, controlled, slightly distant yet still there.

As a teacher, students have wanted to adore me, lavish me, love me. This has always taken me by surprise because I’m just showing up and layin’ my thang down. I have been unaware of my influence in my students lives. Their love confused me and made me want to run. It’s typical of addicts to allow connection with strangers but not with loved ones. I find this fascinating, and certainly familiar.

I think the only people I would really allow to drench me in their love is my children. Yes, I could do that. I would love it from my family of origin but more than half of them are gone now.